Michael Fox apparently didn't get enough of my talking-too-fast style of conversation. The velvet-voiced host of the Little Metal Dog Show brought me back to talk about designing in public, the relationship between theme and abstracts, and collaborating with Mark Sherry's giant math-brain.

He also interviews Days of Wonder co-founder Mark Kaufman, who talks a lot about the business side of things like running a small company, the selection process for adding a new game to their catalog, and the importance of editing.

Both interviews mention how good game design is as focused on the person teaching the game as it is about the people playing it. Your game might be great fun to play, but it's important that the rules are:

* worded so that they're easy to teach
* presented with themes and graphics that entice people to learn
* inviting enough to want to play again to learn more

That's something I think we all inherently understand, but Mark Kauffman puts a real voice of authority behind those principles.